If you listen to certain types, the unemployed are lazy people with no education and no skills who just want to sit around their house and collect their benefits tax free.  The unemployed, you'll hear, don't really want a job.

The truth, of course, is nothing like their lies.  As… Read full post »

When it comes to Herman Cain, the thing that everyone is talking about now is the sexual harassment charges from his days at the head of the National Restaurant Association.

That's a shame.  It's not because sexual harassment isn't a serious issue, and it's not because these… Read full post »

When do you know a movement has run its course?

When it loses supporters who were willing to donate to its cause.

Let's review.  Initially, I was supportive of the Occupy San Diego movement.  I blogged about seeing the initial march and how I supported them.   I visited the site a… Read full post »

There are those who say that markets are smart, and that the people who run trading companies are among the smartest of them.  And very often, we see that they're wrong and smart people and companies do incredibly stupid things.

One of the reasons why so many companies j/…

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Come on, admit it.  You've heard the song.  You've sung along when you're drunk.  It's called Escape, although everyone knows it by the alternative title, The Pina Colada Song.

As I was walking back home tonight, I heard that song playing, and people were singing karaoke to it.  S… Read full post »

I took a walk to the Civic Center today so that I could see what the Occupy San Diego protests have evolved into.  Gone were the tents that I saw a week ago.  The police requested that those be moved, and the protestors complied.  I asked a couple of police officers… Read full post »

A few things that happened in the past few weeks got me thinking.  First was Skank of America's $5 monthly fee for using a debit card.  That was so infuriating that it even got a Faux News talking head to shred her card on TV.

Then there was Occupy Wall Street. … Read full post »

If you were to put together a list of supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement, you'd probably put people like Michael Moore and Susan Sarandon on the list.  These people are well known for supporting progressive causes, so you wouldn't blink an eye when they lent their support to the… Read full post »

Throughout the summer, the talk was of a double dip recession.  As usual, when everyone starts talking about something, it's likely that what they're talking about won't happen.

Take, for example, this article from the Atlantic from August 1.  It was called "10 Signs a Double-Dip Recession i… Read full post »

Those of you who are familiar with San Diego know that the Gaslamp Quarter is one of the busiest areas in the city.  People who live around it get used to large crowds.  We're used to a typical Saturday night when the crowds spill off the sidewalk into the streets.  And… Read full post »

Just when I thought I've seen it all, I see that some people can sink even lower that I thought possible.

A few days after posting my resume on Careerbuilder, I got this email.

Hi XXXX,

Your resume was referred to… Read full post »

Many people believe that options are risky and that they're a great way to lose all of your money.  This can be true, but only if you sell them naked.  That means that if you sell a put, you don't have the money on hand to buy the stock… Read full post »

So, it appears that another failure of a Texas governor -- you wanna talk about how your state has the highest percentage of people making the minimum wage and the highest percentage of people without health insurance, Rick -- called Ben Bernanke's discussion of more quantitative easing "treason."

Fi… Read full post »

By now, everyone who's been paying attention knows that S&P downgraded US debt from AAA to AA+.  We won't take a position on the politics involved.  However, in order to solve the problem, it's clear that sacred cows will have to be sacrificed on both the reven/…

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Michele Bachmann's flap with Tom Petty about her use of his song, "American Girl," is the latest episode of her idiocy.  After well documented incidents where politicians have been asked to stop using songs by the artists who wrote them, why not check first?  You save yourself a lot of emba… Read full post »

As many of you may know, HBO made a movie out of Andrew Ross Sorkin's book, "Too Big to Fail."  In the book, which we'll be reading soon, Sorkin goes behind the scenes and shows you the human side of the people who were involved in defusing the financial/…

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In the past week, not one, but two men have written columns that suggest that men are just acting naturally if they get aggressive with women.  Rape, these men say, is just a natural instinct that we're suppressing.

First up is Scott Adams.  In his blog, he wrote an entry titled… Read full post »

Ronald Reagan, the hero of the so called conservatives, once said "are great numbers of our unemployed really victims of the illegal alien invasion or are those illegal tourists actually doing work our own people won't do?  One thing is certain in this hungry world;/… Read full post »

As usual, the Daily Show nails it.  And I love Kristen Schall.  So deadpan, but so funny.  Some of the best lines?

The whole sexting thing "can be chalked up to the age old misconception that women want more information about your penis and seeing it will make  you more attractive… Read full post »

Weather professionals have long known that the Weather Channel is a joke.  You are now as likely to see something about the current weather on the Weather Channel as you are to see a music video on MTV.

But those are experts.  Generally speaking, they hold the talking heads to a… Read full post »

Think back to your introductory finance classes.  Or, if you haven't taken any, you'll have to believe us here.  What was considered the best measure of the risk free rate when computing the value of any financial instrument?

A lot of people use the US treasury.&nbs/…

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As you all may know, California is in a world of hurt.  The state is suffering from a huge budget deficit.  The recently elected governor, Jerry Brown, has proposed to close the shortfall with a combination of spending cuts and by letting California's voters -- the people who pay the… Read full post »

The Daily Beast has an annual list of smartest and dumbest cities in America.  Last year, we took that list and examined the per capita incomes of both the smart and dumb cities.

Not surprisingly, we found that the smart cities had a much higher per capita income than the dumb… Read full post »

Most of us have seen the pictures of the devastation in Joplin, Missouri.  At least 116 people died in the disaster.  Entire houses were ripped off their moorings and sent flying, with only the concrete slab left.  Hospital records from the local hospital were found 70 miles away.

Acco… Read full post »

I was at work the other day, and we have someone who's applying for citzenship.  She was born in Japan, grew up in Hawaii, and now is in the process of becoming an American citizen.  Good for her!

What is distressing, however, is the lack of knowledge of those who already… Read full post »